The present invention relates to oral compositions compounded with chitin or its derivatives.
It has usually been practiced to prevent the occurrence of dental caries, periodontoclasia and mouth odor by compounding effective ingredients such as sodium monofluorophosphate, .epsilon.-aminocaproic acid, chlorhexidine hydrochloride and the like with oral compositions including dentifrices such as tooth paste, tooth powder, liquid dentifrice and the like; mouth rinses; oral fresheners and chewing gums. However, the oral compositions have been disadvantageous in that as a rule they are all ejected after use and the dentifrices are commonly washed out with water after use, and therefore the amounts of said effective ingredients to be compounded must be increased considerably in order to expect the effective ingredients to achieve their inherent effects.
Although tin fluoride, phytic acid and the like are used frequently as the effective ingredients in the dentifrices, and insoluble metaphosphate, sodium pyrophosphate, silica (amorphous silicic anhydride) and the like are used frequently as abrasives therein, it is preferable that the dentifrices compounded with them are held acidic as a whole because they are generally stable on the acidic side, and accordingly it is more preferable that the binding agents used in the dentifrices are not only stable on the acidic side but also are acidic themselves in situ.
As the binding agents there have usually been used Veegum, carboxymethyl cellulose, polyvinyl alcohol, carrageenan and the like. However, these are apt to be influenced by the water-soluble salt compounded in the dentifrice and lose their binding ability. In case their binding ability is lost, there are brought about the following disadvantages such as deterioration in viscosity of the dentifrice and lowering of water-holding capacity, while in the case of tooth paste the smoothness of the surface is lost and the water content comes to separate.
In addition thereto, when silica is compounded, as abrasives, with the tooth paste, it normally displays a rough taste due to impurities contained in the silica. Because of this, it has usually been necessary to cover up the rough taste by adding special or very strong flavoring.